


Double Trouble

by katea_mccombs



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst, F/M, Fluff, M/M, klance, mcclain twins
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-01-17
Updated: 2017-03-01
Packaged: 2018-07-23 12:21:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,868
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7463052
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/katea_mccombs/pseuds/katea_mccombs
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Continuing to breathe deeply, Shiro once more approached the pod slowly despite his earlier fears. Scrunching his brows together, his hand touched the glass gently expecting a similar reaction as before only to be disappointed by nothing happening. Sighing, he looked back at her face pursing his lips.<br/>“Who are you?”</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Everything around him was starting to look the same after being constantly surrounded by stars for months. There was nowhere he looked out the windows where there weren’t stars shining in their own constellations. Years earlier they would have fascinated him. Now, they were nothing but a constant reminder of how far away Earth was from where they were. Lance missed the sunlight blazing on his skin, not caring how it would burn later because he was having the time of his life with his family. Their own little private beach where they spent most of their days was always inviting, whether it was just him walking around looking up at the night sky or all of his family celebrating Cinco de Mayo with a picnic. Never before in his life did it seem more inviting then now. Lance missed his family, no matter how annoying or loud they could be. His younger sibling’s screams of joy as they chased him around his house would be far better than the loneliness of space, even if there were others around. Hell, Lance was ready to let his sister yell at him for taking her stuff over another failed mission. Anything was better than looking down at a planet full of living things get taken by Galra all because the team had lost. How he would kill to bring her on board, there was no doubt Mara would be fascinated by everything on board. It was the technician mind set; Hunk had the same thing which was more than likely why Lance had been drawn to be his friend in the first place.

The two were very similar but obviously Mara had the McClain flair to her. The McClains could be split up into two groups: those who listened to their brain and those who went with their gut feelings. His father was the logical one and his mother always the one who went with how she felt about the situation. Abuela liked to say his mother had no control, but his dad balanced her out. Out of the twins their father liked to joke that Mara got a lot of the brains and Lance got the zero impulse control. Normally, the young boy was not happy with this but Theo McClain always laughed it off explaining he was just teasing his son. All it took was for Mara to be sent off on a test mission for Lance to realize how right his dad was. With her gone, Lance began to notice how much more he got in trouble. The crazy ideas that she usually held him back from doing actually ended up happening, more than liking landing Lance and Hunk in front of the principal. Like his parents, the twins balanced one another out. With one gone, it was hard for Lance to find balance.

As for his other siblings, he saw his two younger brothers and baby sister every summer he went home from school. They loved hearing the stories of his plans to one day travel through the galaxy with a crew of his own, saving the world and taking down any threats while simultaneously finding an unknown new source that would set the human race up forever. Their wide, innocent eyes loved hearing him tell stories. A deep longing made his heart feel a little heavier than before. The only thing helping his homesickness was the image of the day when he returned back to Earth a hero. No story he had ever told before would beat the one about the adventures he had had with the other paladins.

When was, of course, a very hopeful term. With Zarkon lurking waiting to destroy them, that when could easily shift into an if. With the way Keith talked, Lance was beginning to think the chances of returning home were slowly getting slimmer and slimmer. Fortunately, whenever he made Lance doubt their return he got the chance to take the stupid mullet boy down in training the next time they were on the training deck.

Shifting his weight, his gaze travelled amongst each star in a way to somehow distract himself from the strong sense of longing returning. Carefully Lance began tracing the new constellations and counting each star. It worked quite well for the moment, his brain focusing on keeping track of each star. Once he was in the low two hundreds, Lance began to notice the wetness on his cheek. Tears were somehow falling, and were quickly wiped away. He couldn’t be sad; he didn’t have time for being sad. The only way to ensure his way home was to not die and defeat Zarkon.

If that was even possible.

 With a sigh, Lance pressed his head against the glass and tried to continue his counting. A hand was eventually placed on his shoulder making him jump, only stopping himself from going into attack mode when he saw Shiro standing next to him with the usual concerned look on his features. Quickly, Lance slapped a smile on his face as if everything was perfectly fine and awkwardly rubbed the back of his neck.

“Oh hey Shiro, what’s up?” The older boy raised a brow at him slightly.

“Everything okay?” Lance gave a weird thumbs up to go along with his very tight grin.

“Everything is just peachy!” This apparently was not believable as Shiro didn’t seem on board with Lance’s crappy performance of being perfectly okay. So Lance let go his smile and released his tight stance.

“I’m just a bit homesick, I’ll be fine later. It’s all good.” Lance gave the best smile he could that wouldn’t look strained. Shiro looked as if he wanted to question the blue paladin more but instead simply nodded, patting the boy’s shoulder before removing his hand.

“Allura wants us to meet on the training deck, another simulation of sorts to continue our bonding. Be there soon okay?” Lance nodded as well in return. With a sympathetic smile of his own, Shiro left him to look back out at the galaxy around him before following after with a slight sigh. Something flashed outside the window, making Lance turn quickly to see whatever it was only to be met by the same vastness of space he had seen seconds before. Figuring he was just seeing things he headed off to training.

Outside the castle, a Galra ship flew by at high speeds. Inside, the engineer turned pilot struggled to slow it down. She wasn’t made to fly ships, she was meant to fix them. As the ship gained momentum, heading towards a nearby planet, the pilot could feel the temperature inside the ship steadily begin to rise; this did not help her already exhausted mind and body.

 _Home_ , she thought looking at the green and blue planet below her, _maybe I’m home._ But even if it was Earth, the ground was becoming closer and closer and there wasn’t much left for her to try and do. Most buttons had been pressed and pulling back on the gear had done next to nothing, slowing her down barely. Galra tech was a lot different from anything she could remember ever working with. With one last attempt, the brunette on board somehow managed to get the ship to accelerate even more.

“ _Dios mío, voy a morir_.” She mumbled, pulling at levers and pressing buttons once more. There was another reason she was not a pilot, besides the fact that all of the maneuvers were too stressful for her, there was no one to blame but yourself if you crashed. The technician couldn’t be at fault, they already checked the ship over to make sure it was in working conditions. Technicians were there to simply fix anything the pilot screwed over.

With a frustrated hit to the console board, the girl accepted the fact there was no slowing down. Instead, her little energy was put to crashing somewhere where she wouldn’t get damaged too much. Fortunately, the planet below her seemed very Earth like as the pilot could see now this was for sure not Earth. This didn’t necessarily mean oxygen though, the thought making her curse under her breath. Still, there wasn’t much of a choice of where the ship would crash. Once in the atmosphere, there was a clear space of forest that could soften the landing somewhat, it gave her the highest rate of survival. The exhaustion from escaping was settling in, the wounds from her fight beginning to become a problem. With the last bits of energy in her, the course was set and distress signal was sent out to whoever could help her.

There wasn’t much to do afterwards besides get into position and prepare herself for impact. It didn’t take long and her body went entirely numb as the world went to black.

Alarms were blaring on board the castle, training being paused on the training deck as the paladins were all quickly summoned to the control room. There Allura and Coran were quickly working in front of a screen.

“What’s going on? Are we being attacked?” Pidge asked from where they stood, like the other paladins their helmet was held firmly at their side waiting for instructions and an explanation for what was going on.

“We’ve just received a distress signal from the nearby planet Yuron, the ship the signal came from was hurtling towards the planet at great speeds when we received it not too long but now the signal has somehow vanished on the planet. We are currently working on tracking it but it seems the ship may have crashed.”

“A rescue mission then?” Coran and the princess shared an uneasy look before looking back at the group.

“We’re not sure yet, it may be a ploy. You see, the ship we received the signal was Galra and well,” She glanced at Shiro for a moment, “we are not sure who or what is on it. We plan on trying to contact them as soon as we can find their signal.”

“How can we tell if it’s a trap or not?” Hunk asked from the behind Keith, “The last time something like this happened the blue lion got stolen. How will we be able to tell if whoever answers our message is actually in need of help?” Silence fell upon the group, the only noise eventually being the insistent beeping of the ship showing where the Galra ship had crashed. Allura was at the screen in an instant, narrowing in on the location.

 “Now let’s try communicating with whoever is down there.” She mumbled, pressing down on a button and clearing her throat, Allura began sending messages to the other ship. After a few ticks, there was a reply of what sounded simply of a groan. The princess jumped straight to the panel.

“Hello, this is Princess Allura of Altea, are you alright? Are you in need of assistance?” Crackled silence from the other end. Everyone on board waited anxiously for a reply, expecting the deep voice of most Galra soldier only to instead hear what sounded like a young female.

“I-I can’t really feel much.” Came the voice. There was what sounded like movement, a yelp of pain, and so much foul language said in Spanish that Lance felt the need to cover Pidge’s ears. “N-never mind, I can feel again.”  

“Can you move without hurting yourself further?” More crackling came from the speaker as they heard some shuffling and softer cursing.

“No-no I don’t…I don’t…” The voice was fading, exhaustion seeping through. Pursing her lips, Allura replied quickly.

“Stay awake miss, we’re on our way to help you.” There was not reply after that. With a sigh, Allura turned to the paladins. “To your lions everyone, we need to get down there quickly.” With a group nod, the five paladins headed towards their individual lions whilst the princess prepared to go down to the planet herself.

“Princess, you’re not going down there are you? We just got you back! What if something happens? What if you get hurt? You said before there is no way of telling whether or not this person is in need of our help.” Allura offered Coran a soft smile of reassurance.

“We must try and help those in need Coran, do not worry. I will be back soon.” She told him, continuing onwards to change into her own suit. Ever since her return the older man had turned into even more of a sort of warden for the group. Everything had become a danger. Sometimes she wasn’t even allowed to go in the dining hall for he feared someone had broken and poisoned all their food. This usually spread panic among the paladins who would spit out their perfectly fine food much to the dismay of Hunk. Nonetheless, Allura insisted on going about her normal every day to day thing without worry as she was safe back at the castle, nothing bad would happen to her.

After changing, Allura followed after the others in her own pod. As they travelled quickly to the planet, she listened to the paladins bicker. For once it wasn’t Keith and Lance but instead most everyone with Hunk. Once more, the yellow paladin was being aware and cautious just as he had last time.

“I’m just being cautious guys; we need to be careful after what happened last time. And you heard what Coran and Allura said, even they aren’t certain whether or not this is a trap.”

“We have to go Hunk, fake or not we have to help whoever we can. Besides, that girl didn’t sound like Galra to me.”

“How can you even tell, Keith?! We have no idea what the Galra are capable of, maybe they can mimic a girls voice! Who knows?”

“Enough, the both of you, I’ve told this to you before; we will help those in need no matter who calls. The circumstances may not look the best but we have to try.” The paladins fell silent afterwards, following after the silver haired Altean towards the crash site. They landed not too far away but a safe distance as they weren’t sure where the main part of the ship, where the girl had crashed, was exactly. As they exited their ships and walked through the dense forest of Yuron, scattered pieces of Galra tech were most everywhere around them. It was if the ship had gotten shredded to pieces.

“How the hell did they survive from this?” Keith said softly, asking the question on everyone’s mind.

The pilot wanted to know herself. Time when you’re injured is a lot slower than actual time. Despite regaining her ability to feel whilst being able to talk to the princess she had spoken with, the young girl wasn’t truly feeling her mind numbing pain until just then. Every inch of her body ached, whether from injuries gained during the escape or from the crash. She was just thankful for knowing how to brace herself correctly, though she had no idea where she had learned it from exactly. After trying to sit up, an aching pain arouse in the back of her head. Touching a particularly stingy spot on the back of her head, the brunette was gifted with the sticky feeling of blood in her hair and on her hair. Hopefully it was just a scratch and not a concussion. But the concussion would explain why she was fading fast. While waiting in her little crater, the pilot thought fast on how to keep herself awake and to keep her mind busy. Thinking about how happy everyone would be when she got home was a great way to do so. That was, if she could find them. In the moment the girl couldn’t remember anything about herself besides a few things: she was human, the Galra had messed with her somehow, and she would die in the crater if she closed her eyes. Shifting her weight carefully, she tried to loosen the piece of metal pinning her to what used to be the bottom of the ship she flew. No such luck, only more pain in her side followed.

Taking a break from attempting to get herself out, the girl let her head lean back against the destroyed wall and dirt while closing her eyes slightly. She had to stay awake, she kept repeating it in her head, but the exhaustion she’d been trying to ignore was coming back quickly. But staying awake meant staying alive. And if there was anything in the world she absolutely had to do it was stay alive. Stay alive for the family she didn’t remember and the friend’s faces she couldn’t miss. Forcing her eyes open, the pilot observed her surroundings in silence before she herd crunching and a voice that sounded like it was under water.

“I’m over here. I’m,” A rough cough that shook her whole body cut her off, “over here, please. Help...” Her voice was weak but it seemed to do the trick as shouting could be heard from above her. And then things were being lifted off of her carefully. More gargled voices surrounded her as her vision began to blur slightly. A soft oh my god came from beside her as a hand went touch her neck as if to check for a pulse. In response, the girl groaned to show that yes, she was in fact still alive.

“Alright, Hunk you think you can pick her up? We need to get her to a cyro pod.” This voice was soft yet stern and came from the left of her. The image of the one talking was blurred with lines of black with a faint purple light floating around his left arm. Then, one of the blobs, the yellow one she had internally named Pac Man, came towards her. The name was familiar in her mind, but the reference was to something she couldn’t figure out. Feeling numb in the person’s arms, the girl allowed her eyes to shut and let the blackness drown out everything.

This of course sent the large boy into slight panic. The girl looked dead in his arms. And if there was one thing Hunk did not want to do today was carry a dead body. There was only a sigh of relief after he felt her pulse steadily, faintly but steadily, beating on her wrist.

“Hey, guys?” Everyone looked to him.

“I think she passed out.”And then the once calm rescue mission went into full panic mood. Pidge was in charge of making sure the girl’s pulse was steady, Shiro was looking to see if they had any water to splash on her face, Lance was trying to poke her in the face to wake her up as Keith continuously slapped his hand away in an attempt to get him to stop, Allura was calling Coran to move the ship closer if he could all while Hunk stood there worriedly making sure the girl in his arms was not dead.

It took a bit to get back on the ship and once back there had been a slight argument on who should take the poor girl down to a pod. Allura argued with the paladins that she and Pidge should take care of it as they were the only girls, along with Hunk to at least carry her downstairs. The princess argued that it would probably be more comfortable for them to change her into something else instead of a horde of boys surrounding her. Keith argued that if she woke up they should all be there to question her. This went on for a bit before Allura won the entire argument and she, Pidge and Hunk all headed to the healing pods.

Once Hunk came back up, he, Shiro, Lance and Keith discussed who would get what shift to watch over their newest guest on board the ship. Keith felt if she awoke and did attack he’d be the best to be there and of course this upset Lance who insisted he would be the better choice. In the end neither of them won the battle and both stormed off to their rooms on board.

“I think I’ll being making us something to eat.” Shiro gave his friend a small smile as the other boy headed off to the kitchens whilst he headed down to where the girl was being kept on board.

In the room of pods, Shiro walked in to Allura muttering things with Coran. Pidge was absent from the room, more than likely meaning she had been sent off to either train or make sure Hunk did not destroy the kitchen once more or something similar. With an awkward cough, Shiro made his presence known to the two alteans.

“Oh, Shiro. How can we uh help you?”

“The team is still kind of wary of who we brought on board.” The two gave him a look of confusion as if that did not answer their question. “I wanted to look at our guest myself and determine if they seemed like a threat.”

“It won’t be that difficult to determine Shiro.” Now it was his turn to look confused. With a quick look to one another, one that always annoyed Shiro and the other paladins; they both took a step back. He could see her face clearly now, beforehand it had been covered by the dirt, blood and hair. But Allura and Pidge had cleaned her up a bit and had changed her into the clothes used for the cyro pod. Lance liked to joke they were basically long pajamas but no one could argue that as in a way he was right. He gave a look to Coran as if asking what they wanted him to see before the adviser motioned to her legs. They were covered but her feet could be seen. One was clearly human.

The other was Galra tech.

Confusion took over his features as he observed the girl, a weird sense of familiarity washing over him. Shiro took a few steps back from the pod.

“How this-Sendak said I was the only one.”

“We are just as confused as you are Shiro, but if this girl awakens and is under Galra control…” He could only imagine what could happen. But once more the strange sense of familiarity was back, like once he had known the girl in front of him.

“Is something wrong, Shiro?” Allura asked. Squinting his eyes at the girl’s face, the black paladin sighed in slight frustration. This amnesia he had, the occasional flashbacks or the strange sense of déjà vu were, in the simplest sense, the most annoying thing in his life. Everything reminded him of an old routine that once felt normal.

“I think I may have known her on the ship at one point,” The princess visibly brightened at this information, “but I have no recollection of who she is, why she was there or where exactly I know her from.” This made Allura slump down once more as she realized Shiro had no information that could help them figure out who exactly their guest was. After a few moments of just standing and watching the girl closely, the princess and her advisor told Shiro they were going to test some new pats of the castle.

And then it was just him and the girl floating in the cyro pot. There wasn’t an exact time frame for how long Shiro spent just standing in front of the pod staring at the familiar face until his eyes hurt. What he was looking for he wasn’t sure. It was just becoming exhausting having to repeatedly say “I don’t know” and apologizing for it. For once he wanted to be of use, to help the team by remembering something of use for once instead of just short tidbits of his life on Earth or gory things from his time as the champion.

Remembering his family was of course nice, seeing what his dad looked like and remembering his mother’s smile were things that let him sleep at night. But the time in the arena wasn’t a necessary memory and of all the things Shiro had forgotten he wished those memories had stayed repressed somewhere dark in his head. He wished that those memories could be replaced by those of use, such as any information on the girl in front of him. Every passing moment was just another second of growing frustrations with himself.

“This is hopeless!” His non-human hand hit the cyro pod in front of him, before suddenly Shiro was no longer standing aboard the ship and this time around his galra hand was pressed against the bars of a door.

* * *

 

_“It’s no use, I’ve tried.” Turning his body slightly, Shiro was greeted by the same girl staring at the wall across from where she sat on a hard bed. “Not even the champ can get out of here.” He frowned at the title; it wasn’t one of any kind of honor. No, it was used more to mock him and remind him what he had become. It was meant to remind him of how little humanity was left in him._

_“Where am I?” At last she turned to face him, her eyes were a kaleidoscope of colors making him unsure of what they truly were. But there was no emotion held within, only a broken blank stare that fit in with her slightly broken smile she was giving him._

_“Welcome to the Galra Mental Institute, a place where you’ll be broken down into tiny bits and pieces and utterly destroyed.” The brunette turned and leaned back against the wall once more, bringing her leg up allowing him to notice the Galra tech where he assumed human flesh used to be._

_“Or you can call it the toy box like everyone else does.”_

_“The toy box?”_

_“The Galra like shiny things that can easily break,” She laughed harshly, “and you’re their newest play thing.”_

* * *

 

            With a sharp gasp, Shiro’s eyes flew open and he removed his hand from the pod quickly. A cold sweat settled upon his paled skin, his eyes wide in fear. The ship, she had been there on the ship. In the toy box, a name he hadn’t remembered until that moment. But it wasn’t the name he neither needed nor wanted from the flashback, yet it was something.

Taking a few deep breaths to calm down, Shiro took a few steps back, slightly scared and intrigued about what had just happened. His eyes stayed glued on the pod as if any moment it could shoot open and the girl behind the barrier could attack despite the time remaining being on the screen of the container. It would’ve been impossible for her to escape without the help of another, moving wasn’t something one could do in the pod once activated. Yet somehow it looked like her lips were quirked up slightly.

            Continuing to breathe deeply, Shiro once more approached the pod slowly despite his earlier fears. Scrunching his brows together, his hand touched the glass gently expecting a similar reaction as before only to be disappointed by nothing happening. Sighing, he looked back at her face pursing his lips.

            “Who _are_ you?”


	2. Chapter 2

No one on board was pleased with the new rules set in place after they saved the girl who had crushed. All paladins were to stay out of the infirmary and away from her healing pod at all times unless otherwise noted. Lance was disappointed as he wanted to get a closer look at who they had brought on board; Keith had a similar reason as he figured he could somehow evaluate her by checking her vitals and any other statistics the computer spat out. Hunk and Pidge had both seen the mechanical leg and wanted a better look at it, because despite the crash it looked like it was in a lot better shape and a more advanced version than Shiro’s arm and they wanted a closer look. But the princess had been deadly serious, even Coran looked like a strict advisor for once and was adamant on making sure no one made it to the room where she was being held for what must have been nearly a month.

They all figured that it was so they didn’t accidentally let her out early or messed with the technology and kill her somehow. So though they bitched and moaned, they thought they understood why they weren’t allowed in. The princess was thankful they had created their own reasons for the real reason they were keeping her away from the rest was due to what had popped up thanks to the Galran tech they had acquired. After placing her in the healing pod, they begun running her vitals through the database in hopes perhaps something about her could come up. And something did, though it wasn’t what they had been expecting. Allura and Coran figured the data would show up under the list of prisoners who had been on board whatever ship she had been on. Only her vitals showed up under a different sector, under the name Commander. It didn’t take long for them to decide to keep the others out. Before anyone could rush into action, throwing the pod out into space “accidentally” or something of the sort, they wanted to get any and all information they could from her before she was healthy once more.

“You know it’s dangerous princess, Sendak was Galra. Their bodies are strong like the Alteans. This girl doesn’t look Galran at all, she looks like the others.” Coran had tried to say as he brought a long tube and many other pieces of technology towards her pod.

“Coran we hold a Commander to Galra’s troops, there is information in her brain that can help without a doubt. Perhaps a code to dig deeper into their archives, there is no way I’m going to pass something like this up. Right now she’s the enemy and I will do whatever I need to do.” Seeing the determination on the young girl’s face, Coran simply sighed and continued putting together the small pod and connected it to the larger healing pod. From the small panel on the pod, she pressed in several things before a low humming began. 

It wasn’t the kind of hum the girl was used. Normally the humming was louder, it told her the laser was being started up or that one of the doors was being opened or closed. Nothing was opening and she wasn’t able to move. Her lips felt like someone had super glued them closed and as did her eyelids. Trying to move any part of her body made it feel as if time had stopped and she no longer had control over her limbs. Panic coursed through her, the already cold atmosphere seemed to grow more frigid as her mind ran wild. Maybe she never truly made it off the ship; this could have been some mind game the druids had created. It wouldn’t have been the cruelest thing she had had to endure from them, but it felt pretty high up there. Giving her the false hope that she’d successfully escaped from the real life hell would put her as a traitor or back into punishment for believing it was something she could do in the first place. Her suspicion of being recaptured by the Galra was only further supported by the familiar feeling of someone pushing their way into her mind and into the things she didn’t even know she remembered. Every inch of her felt the need to scream, to somehow communicate to whoever was poking around to stay the hell out of her head.

Things repressed flashed through quickly. The time with the druids, her first trial, her first kill, the time she spent with a blurred stranger in a cell, blurred faces filled with laughter and names she couldn’t quite remember, the destruction of planets, leading a legion, her time in the arena. It was flowing back all at once like a dam had broken in her mind. A migraine like she had never felt before ripped the memories in half throughout all the chaos and everything came to a sudden stop and once more all there was the coolness on her skin and the darkness in her mind.

Outside the pod, the small tube with a slowly growing violet tree abruptly stopped as instead alarms began to go off in warning of the damage they were sure to be causing. Throughout the ship the alarms blared, alerting not only the princess and her advisor but the paladins as well.  No matter what they were doing, each paladin dropped everything and rushed to the main control room ready for battle. When no one was there and there seemed to be no threat around them, it was Pidge that suggested that maybe something had gone wrong in the infirmary before they were all then rushing towards where the alarms had been originally set off from.

“Princess, her brain activity has spiked tremendously for a moment. She seems to be somehow keeping us out.” Allura cursed in Altean and began frantically pressing things on the pod to stop it from overloading and perhaps shutting down either locking the girl away until it was fixed or spitting her out before she was fully healed. Although, someone still weak could easily be detained unlike a fully trained Galra Commander at full health who could probably take down most anyone on board. Her hand hovered over the control panel on the pod for a moment. Perhaps it wouldn’t be such a bad thing to let her out when she was still groggy and weaker than a small child. Then again, she thought as her hand went back to trying to stop the process, Allura had no idea whether that would happen or not and it was no use losing an asset over a might be.

“What are you doing? Why is the alarm going off?”

“It’s none of your concern paladins, nothing the princess and I can’t handle. Now out, out!” Coran ushered the protesting paladins out of the room as Allura put an end to the alarm, stopping the memory extraction process. There was no record of someone being able to deny passage to their memories, even Sendak hadn’t been able to keep them out of his head. From outside the room there was obvious arguing between the paladins and her advisor, the voice she mainly heard was Shiro’s as most all of the others seemed to blend into his trying to get straight answers from Coran. Staring at the girl’s peaceful looking face for only a moment more, Allura headed out of the room closing the door behind her. It appeared whatever answers Coran had given the paladins hadn’t been satisfactory as they were attempting to push past him to the best of their ability. Upon seeing the princess exit the room, they all immediately jumped away from Coran looking bashful.

“If you want to know so badly there was a simple malfunction with some of the technology holding our uh guest. It was nothing we couldn’t handle, now you should all get back to your training. Everything has been handled.” Not one of them moved, all of them stayed glued to the spot where they stood just watching her closely. After a moment they reluctantly began heading the other way, mumbling to themselves. Pidge’s brows furrowed together as they thought back to what they had seen in their short time in the room. Something had seemed off, yet familiar about the pod holding the girl. As they walked, they slowly came to a stop as they realized what it had been.

“Wait, Allura!” They called out the princess how had begun walking in the other direction. The other paladins paused as the green paladin attempted to get the attention of the princess who just kept walking. Confused, they stopped trying to get her attention and sighed.

“What was it Pidge?” The others had continued on but Lance was still standing behind them.

“There was something in there, I’m not sure what it was exactly but it seemed familiar.” The two looked at the door before sharing a mischievous look and slyly making their way over back to the room. As Lance acted as a lookout for anyone who would try and stop them, Pidge went to work on the panel next to the door to get it open. The hallways had been emptied as the others had headed to training and the princess had gone to do important princess things. Coran was nowhere in sight, more than likely commanding the three other paladins and making no one got seriously injured. It wouldn’t be long before someone noticed the two of them were gone and Lance began to get anxious.

“Can’t you work any faster?”

“I’m sorry, it’s not like I was prepared to do this today.”

“Yeah but you’ve already hacked into the Garrison before, shouldn’t this be similar?” The sorter paladin scoffed, pausing their work for a moment to correct Lance.

“The Garrison was technology I’ve worked with before Lance. It was _ human  _ tech. This stuff is advanced and needs more time shut up, let me work and get back to being look out.” With a slight huff, Lance did as told and went back to his post as Pidge continued to work. When the door opened with the usual whoosh they whooped in victory before the pair made their way back into the forbidden room. No lights were on when they entered, the only source came from the pod and the smaller next to it glowing purple. While Pidge went to the small panel of tech in the center, Lance took it upon himself to get a better look at their visitor.

 She seemed human, the same sort of ears and with a build similar to Pidge’s but slightly taller. The only alien thing about her was the leg, something they hadn’t really been informed about. Sure it had been mentioned but actually seeing it was different. It definitely stood out even with the long suit put on her that the others had also worn when they were being healed. Her features looked familiar, but Lance couldn’t put a name to the face for some reason yet there was a strong pull to the girl in front of him he had never felt before. 

“Pidge, who does she remind you of? Like think about celebrities and such on Earth, who does look like to you?” Pidge looked up from where they were pulling up files that had been previously closed before shrugging and going back to work.

“Kinda reminds me of you if I’m honest. You have the same nose.” On instinct Lance touched his own nose before looking back and raising his eyebrows. Like usual, Pidge was right. Her nose was quite similar to his own. As was her face and eye shape and skin tone. Both had what his mother referred to as “a hispanic glow” to describe their tanned skin. The more he looked the more he found similarities. He wondered if she opened her eyes if they were same blue that his were, highly unlikely but it’d be like seeing a girl clone of himself.

The realization hit him like a ton of bricks. Lance knew a girl clone of himself. 

“Oh my god, oh _ mios Dios Pidge _ . Oh, Dios, no. Pidge is there a file on her? Did they find one?”

“Yeah but what’s-” Pidge was cut off by Lance practically pushing her to the side and taking over looking through. There was a picture and some Galran writing but the young girl with her eyes closed in the photo was for sure the person in front of them. It was so familiar, it looked just how he had remembered it almost four years earlier over every call, every summer home, every day since they were born. It looked just the same as it had as they watched it grinning get onto a ship to head on it’s first mission as the world’s youngest astronaut. She had been supposed to return this year.

* * *

  _“But that’s so long! What am I gonna do for four years without you here anyways?” The girl on the other side of the screen smiled slightly, her ocean like eyes shining bright ready for adventure. The conversation had been going on for hours, ranging from him complaining about her not returning home for the summer to the new trip she would be going on into space; a dream the two of them had had since they were small and saw a ship fly for the first time._

_ “You have mama and dad, and you have Sammy, Mateo and Lila when she’s born. There will be a baby there, that’ll be exciting for the family. Maybe even Hailey will come visit from college for a bit. You’ll be fine, plus I have video messages I’ll send you and who knows maybe we could video chat.” Lance frowned, leaning back in his seat. Sure he was jealous, he had just gotten accepted into the Garrison himself yet, and at cargo pilot at that as well, but here she was going into space at barely fourteen. It felt unfair, but she had gotten the brains out of the two of them. And she was using them to her advantage to achieve their dream. _

_ Seeing he was clearly upset in some way, the girl sighed hundreds of miles away.  _

_ “Lance, you’ll get to space. And when you do you can bet that I will cheer you on and be the first person to hug you when you get back and have like grown a beard or something. Just, I want you to be happy for me despite how selfish it sounds. We’ve always supported each other’s success. Like when you won that soccer championship and knocked out your tooth.” Lance laughed at the memory of him with a bloody mouth from losing the tooth but the two of them grinning wide despite the gap in his mouth. _

_ “Okay, I understand. I am happy for you. I’ll be sitting at the launch cheering you on from the stands even if you can’t see me.” The smile he gave was returned and it quickly dawned on them how late it was getting and that they both had things they still had to do. _

_ “We’ll talk tomorrow before the launch okay?” _

_ “Got it, talk tomorrow. And hey, be careful okay. Space is cool but I’m gonna need you to be careful.” This made her laugh, but she promised she’d come back. _

_ “I love you, Lance. See you tomorrow.” _

_ “Love you too, bye.” With a wave the call ended and Lance was alone in his room once more. She would come back to him, in four years time she’d be back at home with him and the rest of the family. _

* * *

“Lance? Hellllllooooo, Earth to Lance.” The waving of a hand in front of his face brought him back from his reminiscing.

“Are you okay? You look like you’ve seen a ghost or something.” He shook his head hard, pushing his hair back as it fell slightly in his face.

“She was supposed to be going home.” He said softly, looking away from the panel and back at the girl in the pod. “She promised me she’d-”

“You know her?” 

“Pidge, she’s my sister.” The youngest paladin seemed just as shocked as Lance was. 

“I thought your sister was in college? Or like four.” 

“I do but I had, well have, a twin sister. Her name’s Mara but, but we were told that everything on her mission was going well. We still got video messages up until we left from her. The Merit must have been covering up the disappearance.” The Merit was another flight school but was far more prestigious than the Garrison. The McClain family hadn’t had a lot of money but Mara had gained a full ride there from her outstanding grades and the audition they had to show her skills as a technician. Surprise surprise, Mara passed with flying colors and after a semester in her own age class was ranked higher to be with the more skilled technicians to be on the same level.

But the Merit had a reputation to uphold. They were one of the best flight schools in the country, Garrison was up there but not as high. It shouldn’t have been such a shock they would hide the failure as a mission and lie to families to keep them from getting backlash and hate. It made Lance outraged, his family was waiting for the return of their daughter any day now but instead here she was in a pod healing from a near death experience due to the one thing in the universe Lance was trying to protect his family from.

“Open the pod Pidge.” He walked over and placed a hand on the glass separating the siblings. A small screen appeared with altean symbols on it that he couldn’t read.

“Lance it could kill her, we can’t open the pod okay. Let’s just finish up finding out why Allura and Coran don’t want us in here and get out of here.” Although he had taken a few steps back, Lance’s eyes never left his sister’s resting form. Pidge watched him closely before slowly going back to their research to see what had been going on before the paladins had barged in. They were thankful for the small lessons of Altean they had been taking otherwise they wouldn’t have been able to read any of the mumbo jumbo floating by. There were a few things they recognized from before or things they had studied. The number one thing that stood out was the constant repetition of memory. Pidge had researched some things on the storing of memories on the ship after they found out about King Alfor’s memory and when they took Sendak’s very memories to help beat the Galra and gain an advantage. When they looked up from their research, their eyes landed on the small chamber glowing violet in the otherwise relatively dark room. It didn’t take long for them to place it in their own memories as what they used with Sendak to forcibly remove memories from his head.

It clicked in their head instantly. The hiding of her file, the commander status, the memory chamber, the alarm. Allura had told the paladins whilst they were extracting memories that they hadn’t ever really taken from an unwilling participant, which Coran explained to be because it’d be like torture but Sendak had been a special case. Mara wasn’t willingly giving up her memories, they were practically torturing her. Something had to have reacted with the extraction to cause the alarm they had heard.

Now Pidge had two things to do: tell Lance and then keep him from doing anything rash.

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Feel free to comment, leave kudos etc. or to message me on my tumblr below!  
> tumblr: http://jaaneman-x.tumblr.com/


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